The present invention relates generally to disk drives, and more particularly to a disk drive having an airflow suppressor comb for reduced disk rotation induced airflow.
The typical hard disk drive includes a disk drive base, a head disk assembly (HDA), and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) attached to the disk drive base. The head disk assembly includes at least one magnetic disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) having an actuator assembly having at least one transducer head, typically several, for reading and writing data from the disk. The printed circuit board assembly includes a servo control system in the form of a disk controller for generating servo control signals. The head stack assembly is controllably positioned in response to the generated servo control signals from the disk controller. In so doing, the attached heads are moved relative to tracks disposed upon the disk.
A topic of concern is the desire to reduce the effects of airflow generated within the disk drive due to rotation of the disks. Of particular concern is the occurrence of turbulent airflow which may tend to excite a resonance response of the actuator assembly. This results in an increase in the percent off-track values of the associated head. Further, such disk rotation induced airflow may result in a force applied to the actuator assembly, i.e., windage. Further, such disk rotation induced airflow may result in vibration of the disk or disk flutter. In addition, it is contemplated that the disk rotation induced airflow tends to become turbulent radially beyond the outer disk edges due to boundary layer separation occurring within various cavities within the disk drive. Such turbulent airflow further tends to impact the resonance response of the actuator assembly and disk flutter. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved disk drive for mitigation of such disk rotation induced airflow in comparison to the prior art.
An aspect of the invention can be regarded as a disk drive including a disk drive base. The disk drive further includes at least one rotatable disk including a disk surface extending to an outer disk edge. The disk drive further includes a head stack assembly rotatably attached to the disk drive base in operable communication with the disk. The disk drive further includes an airflow suppressor comb coupled to the disk drive base and stationary relative to the disk drive base during operation of the disk drive. The comb includes a comb body disposed adjacent to the outer disk edge, and at least one tine extending from the comb body along the disk surface for mitigating disk rotation induced airflow upon the head stack assembly adjacent to the disk surface. The comb further includes a curved extension extending along the outer disk edge for mitigating turbulent airflow adjacent the outer disk edge. The curved extension preferably extends from the comb body towards the head stack assembly along the outer disk edge.